


Across The Room

by eloquated



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Accident/Fate, F/M, Feelings, First Meetings, Nostalgia, Rare Pairings, YOIRarePair2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28553481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Years later, Yakov Feltsman would remember that it had all started with a glance.But when you were looking at Lilia Baranovskaya, a glance was all it took.
Relationships: Lilia Baranovskaya/Yakov Feltsman
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: YOI Rare Pair Week 2021





	Across The Room

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to do something for this ship for ages, and the rare pair week was just the prompt I needed!
> 
> For the YOI Rare Pair Week, the fill 'Accidents/Fate'.

Years later, Yakov Feltsman would remember that it had all started with a glance.

Practically an accident, just two people looking up at the right moment.

Not a long and lingering glance, not the sort that they spoke of in all the classic Russian novels he'd had to study when he was very young in school. And he was grateful for it, because those stories had never ended happily for anyone.

No, it had been just a glance across a room that smelled of dusty sheet music, sweat, and the faintly sticky polish that the cleaners had used on the floors and forgotten to clean away entirely. He'd been practicing, stretching, trying to work out the dozens of bruises that simply came with spending your whole life on the ice.

He'd been a young man, then. Dedicated to his art, and his country; and determined to show the rest of the world that there were no skaters in the world that could compare to the Russian national team. 

He wore his jacket like a symbol of pride, true red, with the hammer and sickle emblazoned on his shoulder in gold.

It hadn't mattered that his practice times were slotted in late at night, and early in the morning, because he still had to keep his job during the day. He wasn't rich, and he didn't see himself delivering packages for the rest of his life.

One day, he was going to have his name in lights, and on posters, and the world was going to know who he was.

Not just a delivery boy from Leningrad, or the son of two first generation Jewish Russians whose parents left their own home in Hungary for the chance at something better. He'd finished his mandatory service just in time to escape the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and not a moment too soon. 

Russia had enough problems, he thought to himself-- and never voiced aloud. They should be more focused on rebuilding their own country. 

But those were things you didn't dare talk about, or even think too loudly. No, it was best to keep your head down and work on the job in front of you. He knew his place, even if he was aiming for something higher.

For Yakov, that something was skating. It was his great love, even if it didn't pay his bills or put food in his stomach. It was the thing that made his working life bearable, knowing he could retreat to the rink at the end of the day.

He's fairly sure his life would have continued this way, ticking between work and the rink, if not for her.

Lilia Baranovskaya. 

The girl on the other side of the studio with her dark hair pulled severely back from her face, all save the few strands that had escaped her collection of ruthless elastics and bobby pins. In a room of delicate flowers, dressed in every spun sugar shade of pink, Lilia was the black swan. She was half a head taller than the other girls, and was blessed with the longest legs Yakov had ever seen.

Very distracting legs, in fact. 

But it was her eyes that caught him. They were level and sharp, and so impossibly green that everything else in the world seemed faded in comparison.

Over the next six months, Yakov spent more time at the studio than he had in the last two years combined. Even Madame Petrovna, the former prima ballerina turned dance instructor (turned hatchet woman, as far as Yakov was concerned. She reminded him unpleasantly of his paternal grandmother, right down to the large mole on the side of her neck,) even she commented on his newfound dedication.

For six months, Yakov tried to catch Lilia's gaze again. Sometimes it worked, lingering for an extra instant, and he could swear the corners of her mouth almost curved into a smile.

Those were the days he left the studio on cloud nine, his heart light in his chest. One day he'd manage to speak to her without the other girls gathered around like a flock of little pink chickens. 

It hadn't happened yet, but he was on the lookout for the right moment.

He chose not to think about the days that she looked through him, utterly absorbed in her choreography. 

And he certainly didn't dwell on the fact that his own program for the season had been rewritten with Tchaikovsky and Prince Siegfried in mind. That was simply coincidence. After all, he'd spent every morning at the studio, for the last several months, listening to Swan Lake. He could hum the entire score from memory. And often did.

It made the daily tedium of biking through endless deliveries a little more bearable; like a constant reminder of why he was working so much overtime. 

Why his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, because there were only so many hours in a day, and he still had practice of his own. 

And why his gaze lingered on the front facade of the Mariinsky whenever he passed.

Yakov watched from the cheap seats, all he could afford, as Lilia took the stage. Beneath the bright lights she was a vision. A glimpse into the art of the past, his jewel against the gold and velvet remains of old Russian grandeur. 

It took him another week to finally approach, feigning nonchalance and his heart in his hands. 

When he took the ice in Moscow that winter, his eyes met Lilia's as she cheered from the stands.

It took another year for him to propose, sinking down to one knee in the middle of the studio. It wasn't planned, but he simply couldn't wait another moment without making her his wife.

Fifty years later, on the far side of a lifetime of experience and the trials of their divorce, Yakov traced his fingers over the photos Lilia kept on the mantle, their gilded frames kept bright and polished. 

The love had endured, even if it hadn't saved their marriage.

These days it was Yuri, and not Victor, who clattered up and down the stairs in the house that had once been theirs. The latest in a long line of boys and girls that had been more like their children than their students.

Yakov wasn't a young man anymore; poised now on the edge of retirement, instead of greatness. But when Lilia came downstairs, and their eyes met? Sometimes a glance was all it took to remind him that there had never been another. Not for him. 

"Coming, Yasha? We're going to be late, and the airport is going to be a nightmare." 

Yakov gave himself a quick shake, and turned away from the pictures. Those were the past; their single, happy instances caught and trapped forever in glossy photo paper. 

He was more interested in his future, and the woman standing impatiently in the doorway, her toes tapping on the floor. 

" _Da_ , coming."

Lilia smiled, and Yakov felt about eighteen again.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me just about everyone as Eloquated, or just pop into the comments for chat about all things YOI! ❤️


End file.
